Pheasant opener is gravy for these bird hunters

Thursday

Oct 31, 2013 at 10:24 AM

By Todd Burras

By Todd Burras

Outdoors Editor

WRIGHT COUNTY — It was 10 a.m. by the time we stepped into a small parcel of Conservation Reserve Program ground my father and mother own in north-central Iowa. Two hours past shooting time, but not bad.

Considering some of the health challenges I’ve faced in the past three months and working around an active teenage boy’s schedule, it was amazing at all that we made it out for the opening day of Iowa’s state pheasant hunting season.

With clouds scudding across the sky from a brisk northwesterly wind, we pulled on hats and caps and pulled up our hoods. Just one more challenge for a pair of already tired hunters at a significant disadvantage without the benefit of a hunting dog’s keen sense of smell.

It didn’t take too long to zigzag through the thick brome grass that yielded no birds at our first stop so we hit the road for the nearby Lower Morse Lake Wildlife Management Area, a favorite spot for many ringneck and duck hunters alike. If we felt challenged without a dog before, what laid ahead defied description. Lower Morse is a massive complex of more than 1,800 acres of rolling public ground replete with potholes, cedar stands and lots of dense upland cover that typically provides scores of hunters their first volleys of a new ringneck season.

But having seen seemingly more farmers in combines than gunners in the fields on the drive around the complex, I presumed with so much cover a few roosters surely would have escaped the gunfire of those who had already earlier in the morning swept through the portion of land we now settled on trying. After all, we’d done something similar the year before and put up a rooster and a pair of hens. Taking off across the field, we hoped for something similar.

Forty-five minutes later, we finally heard our first gunshot. A couple moments later, we saw our first bird — a fast-moving rooster that got up some 40 yards in front of Andrew. The bird was too far away to take a shot at but close enough that we caught a glimpse of its iridescent head and its long tail feathers. Our spirits soared.

"Where did it go, Dad," Andrew called. "Let’s go find it."

We headed in the direction where the rooster appeared to set down, and some time later another rooster, or perhaps the same one, got up well in front of us again and sailed over the crest of a distant hill. A quick glance at Andrew, who was struggling out of a tangle of snake grass, and I sensed a bit of frustration, primarily, I suspected, from the effects of a short’s night of sleep.

Turning back to see our truck more than a half-mile away in the parking lot, I said, "I see biscuits, sausage and gravy on the horizon."

"Let’s keep going, Dad," Andrew replied.

But this time, instead of turning to trail the now-vanished rooster, he turned toward the truck.

At Andrew’s age, when the rest of his body is trying to catch up to his size 14 feet, actions and decisions are often driven more by the rumblings of his stomach than the urgings of his mind. At that moment, breakfast trumped birds.

At my age, I couldn’t disagree. Anytime spent alone with Andrew is a rare opportunity to talk, watch and listen to a young man who will have plenty more opportunities ahead to bag a bird on opening day.

TODD BURRAS can be reached at outdoorstoddburras@gmail.com. Read his blog at www.amestrib.com.

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